


Public Enemy Number One

by A_Diamond



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 1930s, Alternate Universe - Human, Anything goes - Freeform, Betrayal, Boats and Ships, Courtship, F/M, Frottage, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Misunderstandings, Secret Identity, Supernatural Reverse Big Bang Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 04:22:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9802442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Diamond/pseuds/A_Diamond
Summary: Dean Winchester is a sailor on the crew of the ocean liner S.S.Natural, which sets out from New York on a routine trip to England that turns out to be anything but routine. Dean’s brother Sam sneaks aboard to court an engaged woman, while Dean finds himself reluctantly attracted to Father James, the priest who’s suspiciously determined to help Sam’s cause. But when the FBI sends word that Father James is actually the notorious gangster Castiel Novak, the consequences could ruin everyone's chance at love.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mycolour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mycolour/gifts).



> Written for [somuchcolour/mycolour's amazing art](http://somuchcolour.tumblr.com/post/157363494524/destiel-reverse-bang-public-enemy-number-one-by) for the SPN Reverse Bang.

“What—Sammy, what in the Holy Hell are you doing here?”

Dean’s brother slapped a hand over his mouth to silence him, brow furrowed in consternation. Combined with the frock Sam wore it actually made for kind of a familiar sight—Dean had done his fair share of getting on Father Jim Murphy’s bad side as a boy—but Sam was no clergyman and he definitely wasn’t a ticketed passenger on Dean’s ocean liner.

And Dean would know. He’d spent weeks trying to talk Sam into joining him on the crew for the transatlantic journey, with no luck.

“I’ve got a job,” Sam had protested every time. “A good job. A salary job! And Mr. Crowley is trusting me to keep the firm in good standing while he’s on that exact trip, so even if I wanted to play hooky for two weeks, I couldn’t get away with it.”

And yet for all his excuses, there was Sammy, right there on the deck of the S.S. _Natural_ , dressed like a dip but scowling at Dean like maybe Dean was the stowaway in a ridiculous getup. If there was any sense in that arrangement, Dean couldn’t find his way to seeing it.

“Are you trying to get me caught and thrown overboard?” Sam asked, sotto voce. He let go of Dean’s face, looked around nervously, and stepped closer. “You’re the one who wanted me here in the first place!”

There were a few things more conspicuous than a giant in a frock talking swift and secret to a sweaty, paint-splattered sailor, but none of them happened to be around to distract attention just then, so Dean jerked his head meaningfully then turned away. Sam sighed, but his footsteps followed a few paces behind Dean. _Natural_ was a decently large ship, but Dean had lived and worked on her for nine months before she’d berthed overwinter for repairs, so he led them easily to a corner of the stern sheltered from view by a doubled-up pair of hanging lifeboats.

He continued the argument before Sam could. “Yeah, I wanted you here. Coulda got you a proper place on the crew, even. You said no! Loudly and repeatedly, you said no. So I don’t know what you’re doing here now in a God damned priest collar, but I’m guessin’ it ain’t about me. Start talking or I might throw you overboard myself.”

“Okay, listen. So I met this girl last night—”

“Oh, I see,” Dean’s bitterness had to interrupt. “So don’t matter, but you’ll do it for a dame.”

“Yeah, I know, I’m a schmuck. I swear I’ll make it up to you. But Dean!” Sam took hold of his collar and shook him a little. He had the dumbest look of joy on his face, and even Dean wrenching his grip loose didn’t dim it. “This gal, she’s perfect. She was at that art show I got to attend with Mr. Crowley—it’s her father’s gallery. She’s a painter! A real artist. She makes the most amazing landscapes and flowers and eyes, Dean, the way she paints eyes is alive like nothing you’ve ever seen before!”

That was probably true: Dean didn’t spend a whole lot of time staring at painted eyeballs. He was a man of adventure and travel, not society. He’d spent his life on trains and ships since he was old enough to leave home, though he always took care to wire Sammy a message and some dough every payday—at least, he had done when Sammy still let Dean call him Sammy.

Once he’d grown, finished school, and moved to New York, he didn’t need Dean’s petty earnings anymore. Especially after landing the job at Crowley’s firm. But it gave Dean a good base of operations when he took a break from his migratory ways, or even just shore leave when his liner put in on the American side of the Atlantic. It was a pretty good life, even if Dean did wish futilely for Sam to join him.

Not so futilely, it turned out, even if Dean’s wishes weren’t what had drawn Sam to the _Natural_.

“All right, all right. So she’s the dame of your dreams, so what? How’s that bring you here in a smock?”

“Well, she’s here!” Sam exclaimed like that part wasn’t obvious. “She’s sailing to England and this may be my only chance to woo her.”

“Yeah, and?” Dean gestured again at Sam’s costume.

“Right, yeah. Come on, you’ve gotta meet this guy.” The shine in Sam’s eye didn’t glimmer quite as bright as when he waxed poetic about his lady love—“Sarah Blake, isn’t that just a swell name?”—but it was a near enough thing.

Dean and Father James did not get along. More accurately, Father James (“Please, call me Jimmy.”) was perfectly civil while Dean didn’t trust him further than he could spit a rat. He pulled Sam to the corner of the cabin, which he was apparently sharing with the real priest, but made very little effort to conceal his voice once they were faced away.

“You’re telling me he just happened to have a spare outfit in your size, and a spare ticket to boot? Something’s not right there, Sammy.”

Sam twitched away, affronted, when Dean flicked a nail at the white of his priest’s collar. “Maybe it’s a miracle.”

Dean snorted.

“You mock,” Father James interjected softly. He stood at the far end of the room, by the head one bed, with a small smile and no apparent offense. “But I do believe God has brought us together for a reason.”

Turning, Dean looked him over again and didn’t like what he saw any more than before—except maybe on the physical level, but that was neither here nor there. Priest or not, Father James was up to something. It was far too strange of a coincidence for him to have been able to help Sam as much as he had, and he was bound to want something out of it. Even if that something was just Sammy’s eternal soul for God, Dean wasn’t willing to let him have it without a fight.

“Right. God’s personally invested in my little brother misbehaving with a lady.”

“I’m not aiming to misbehave!” Sam’s complaint came with a wrinkled face that might’ve passed as scandalized if Dean didn’t know him so well. That was his caught-out expression, when he was trying to lie but it got stuck on his overly honest features. “I just want to court her, nothing untoward about it.”

“Pretty sure lyin’ in front of a priest is a few kinds of sin, Romeo.”

“I’m not—”

Father James stepped between them, hands raised peaceably. “In truth, I think the Good Lord may have gathered us here to help Ms. Blake in her time of need.”

That sure got Sam’s attention snapping away from Dean. “Sarah needs help?”

Father James nodded gravely. “Your intended intended is currently engaged to another man.”

“I’ve overstepped.”

Sam’s face fell and it made him look younger than he’d done since growing into his height, small and vulnerable. Dean’s opinion of the priest didn’t improve at the blunt way he broke the news, and after apparently offering his help, too, even when he knew Sam didn’t have a chance.

He wasn’t sure what he thought of this Ms. Sarah Blake, either, leading Sammy on when she was a promised woman.

“We just—we got along so well, and she said she wished we had more time together, and... No, I’m sure I misunderstood.”

Father James stepped forward, past an unhappy and untrusting Dean, to rest a comforting hand on Sam’s shoulder.

“You misunderstand now, my child. I’m not telling you this to discourage your suit. Her betrothal is the cause of her distress, I’m afraid.”

Turned out Sarah’s fiancé was an Englishman aboard the very same ship, one Mr. Arthur Ketch. He stood to inherit some minor lordship and her father had arranged the match for Ketch’s money, but according to Father James, the man had a reputation in his home country that would make any of Dean’s crewmates toss him overboard without a moment’s guilt.

As the explanation continued, Sam got more and more distraught. Dean worried for the poor girl’s safety, too, but he was equally concerned with how Father James was tied up in all of it. It still seemed awfully convenient for everything to have fallen into place for Sam to be able to board the _Natural_ without any trouble, and Father James knowing so many details about Sam’s hopeful sweetheart just made things more suspicious.

Before he could question Father James or caution Sam further, the ship’s whistle called him back to work.

_~ No. 1 ~_

Sam tried hard not to fidget in his seat at the captain’s table. Being invited was an honor, even if it was under false pretenses. He and Jimmy had received the note shortly after Dean left to go about his duties, and though he’d fretted about running into Mr. Crowley after spending the first hours of the journey well out of sight, Jimmy insisted they couldn’t refuse.

But Jimmy also told him to go on his own, that he had to write a telegram to some colleagues, so Sam found himself alone in the private dining room earlier than was fashionable. Just as he was shown to his place, though, Sarah and Arthur arrived. If she was surprised to see him, she hid it well, smiling politely when Arthur stiffly introduced both of them to “Father Samuel” and pulled out the chair next to Sam’s for her to sit in.

Arthur clearly wasn’t one for small talk; once he’d settled into his seat, he kept his eyes fixed on the door through which the captain could be expected to enter and ignored both Sam and his fiancée entirely. Planning to take the opportunity to strike up a conversation with Sarah, even though he wouldn’t be able to truly speak his mind in public, he found himself speechless at the gleam of her lovely brown eyes.

Clever as well as talented and beautiful, she filled in the gap for him.

“Father.” Though her voice was demure, he thought he heard a hint of teasing to it. So she did recognize him—or maybe he was being too hopeful. “If you’re not too busy with your responsibilities this trip, I wonder if you might not be willing to talk with me now and then? I’m something of an artist, you see, and I’ve always had a particular fondness for iconography. I’d love to be able to discuss some of the finer points with an educated man such as yourself.”

“Don’t bother the Father, darling,” said Arthur, the need for condescension overriding his lookout for someone of more importance, but Sam fought down his embarrassment and answered:

“Of course, Ms. Blake. It would be my pleasure.”

The smile she bestowed upon him at that moment was fine enough to shame gold. Sam could have spent the rest of the evening happily daydreaming of their time together, since it seemed Sarah wanted to see him as much as he did her, but for the next dinner guest’s arrival.

Crowley stopped in his tracks when his sweeping gaze reached Sam, who stiffened in terror. Wasn’t it just his luck, after things had been going so well. He was about to lose his job and his chance with Sarah. If Crowley revealed his ruse, he’d never be permitted to be alone with her without scandal. Being, or pretending to be, a man of the cloth removed that suggestion of impropriety.

His voice dangerous, starting quiet but quickly escalating into a bellowing roar, Crowley demanded, “Would you care to tell me just what the bloody Hell you think you’re doing?”

Sarah and Arthur stared at Crowley with barely disguised horror, but it was Jimmy who spoke, coming through the door just behind Crowley and circling around him to lay a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Father Samuel, do you know why this gentleman is causing a scene?”

Wordlessly, Sam shook his head. He had no excuse ready on the tip of his tongue, despite his worry that this eventuality could come to pass. He’d been too distracted by Sarah, then by his joy at her reciprocation of his affections—or at least, her attentions. He desperately wanted to be able to speak with her privately to determine the other.

“Have you mistaken my esteemed colleague for someone else, Mr.—?”

“Crowley,” Crowley forced out in a much more strangled tone than he’d been employing. He looked nearly as ashy grey as his dinner jacket, and Sam wondered at the abrupt change in his constitution. Perhaps, believing he had blasphemed to a true man of God, he feared for his immortal soul.

“I humbly apologise, Fathers. Madam,” he added with a half-bow to Sarah. “Indeed, you passingly reminded me of an acquaintance I didn’t expect to see here, and I fear the surprise gave me such a turn I forgot myself entirely.”

The situation resolved pleasantly with forgiveness expressed all around as the captain joined them, much more easily than Sam had ever expected. The protection offered by the clerical collar felt limitless, having just saved him from Crowley’s unfortunately justified wrath. He felt guilty until Sarah smiled at him again.

The meal impressed Sam with its complexity, given that the ingredients and preparation had to survive the limited facilities of the ship. The captain proved appropriately charming for his position, though he briefly lamented the lack of any celebrities to bring their trip the entertainment of celebrity.

“It always makes the trip more enjoyable for our other passengers, I’ve found.”

Sam couldn’t find the heart to share his disappointment; he had the only other passenger he needed to make the trip enjoyable.

_~ No. 1 ~_

The bad thing about spending so many of his off-duty hours with Sam, and Dean hated that there was a bad thing to it at all, was that it also meant spending a lot of time with Father James. The bad thing about spending a lot of time with Father James was that Dean started to like him in spite of himself.

For a moral role model, Father James was awful enthusiastic about helping Sam come up with as many ways as possible over a couple days to abuse his fake clerical collar in order to get time alone Sarah. Even ignoring the fact that she was a woman engaged to marry another man, Dean would’ve expected James to have an issue with how much of that hard-won time alone involved busy mouths and wandering hands, given the state of their lips and clothes after.

But James had no problem with their indiscretions, as far as he showed, and it definitely wasn’t out of ignorance of what they got up to. He was smart as a fox with a wicked sense of humor to match, which also didn't seem to fit so well seeing as how he was supposed to be a spiritual leader and conduit to all the goodness of the world and whatnot. Whenever Sarah had a chance to show up at the door to Sam and James’s suite for “art discussions,” James would grin and wink at them both as he guided Dean away to give them privacy.

Dean could’ve left him to walk the decks alone, gone back to his bunk or to bullshit with his friends among the crew, but it felt rude to when James was being so accommodating and helping Sam with his love affair. Befriending James was its own kind of bad idea, though.

He’d been drawn to James’s looks from the start, but getting to know him as a person meat he just kept getting finer in Dean’s estimation. And he didn’t stop being hotter than an overloaded steam engine, either.

Given that the world at large wasn’t overly enthusiastic about men who liked other fellas along with liking dolls, well, that couldn’t be nothing on how a Catholic priest was bound to feel about it. So Dean simmered like an angry pot of resentment and lust every time James leaned in to murmur something witty and not entirely favourable about people they passed. It happened often on their strolls, and Dean had to fight back shivers when James’s breath caressed his ear.

By the end of his time with James each evening, Dean had a whole lot of frustrated hot and bothered built up and not a thing he could do about it. He bunked with seven other guys and, while they all understood that men had needs and pretended not to notice hands going up and down under blankets in the dead of night or an afternoon off, he didn’t think that a one of them would’ve taken kindly to him shoving his own fingers up himself and calling out for a priest.

_~ No. 1 ~_

Dean wasn’t the only one pent up, it turned out. Love might’ve been carried in on the breeze for Sam and Sarah, but lust seemed to blow over the rest of the ship.

On the third afternoon, when they were closer to England than New York but only barely, the debatably respectable Mr. Arthur Ketch was caught trying to take advantage of one of the lounge singers. The scandal was enhanced by the very public and embarrassing manner in which they were found: just after lunch on the aft deck, Tessa still wearing the long, flattering black dress from her mealtime show and Ketch’s wearing nothing at all.

Much worse—unforgivable, in fact—was Ketch’s conduct. It had been Tessa’s shriek, “I said don’t touch me, you terrible beast!” that summoned most of the ship to them, and she hurried to hide behind two of _Natural_ ’s brawniest sailors as soon as they came into view.

Not a soul objected to Ketch being dragged off to the brig after that, though it had never before been used for a passenger. Drunkenly belligerent sailors aplenty, but never a paying fair.

Sarah, dramatically distraught but secretly pleased, broke the engagement immediately, while everyone was still gathered around to witness her show of betrayed outrage. “I just don't know what I'll do,” she wailed into an upturned arm.

“I haven’t the funds for a return trip, or even a telegram to my dear father. I’ll be stranded in England, heartbroken and alone, without even pencil or paper to try and earn my fare. Will I be forced to turn to—” She broke off, unable to even speak the terrible possibility.

The captain stepped up to her, offering her a comforting hand. She accepted it with grace as the captain said, “Ms. Blake, it would be my greatest honor to have you aboard our return trip. Please don’t think to trouble yourself about the cost of it, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I left you in such terrible straits.

“Please, allow me to escort you back to your cabin. After such a nasty turn, I’m sure you could use the rest.”

“You’re too kind, captain. Only, would someone else please be just as kind, and let Father Samuel know I’m in need of his spiritual guidance? I feel just so unsteady.”

“Of course, ma’am,” Dean volunteered before anyone else could. He couldn’t wait to see the joy on Sam’s face when he shared the news. “I’ll fetch him at once.”

When he reached the priestly cabin, he didn’t find Sam as expected. He didn’t find anything at all that he’d expected.

He walked in on Father James himself stretched atop the covers of his bed in his altogether. Dean was pretty sure the clergyman ought to’ve taken a vow at some point about not doing the thing he was doing, because there was nothing chaste about the way he had himself in hand. His dick, a damn near perfect specimen of manhood, flushed only barely between his tanned fingers and its head looked dry from where Dean stared helplessly at it.

He’d just begun. Father James was at the start of abusing his virtue and Dean, Satan Himself take him, couldn’t breathe for wanting to help. Caught in the shock of the moment, all he could do was watch as James’s fingers danced slowly, slowly, slowly down his shaft. He might have been looking at Dean, but it was hard to tell with Dean’s own gaze fixed unwaveringly on the indecent slide of his hand. James wasn’t stopping.

“Close the door,” said James, earning a sliver of Dean's concentration. His voice was thick and dark as molasses, and Dean drowned under its rich sweetness before he could even think of disobeying. But the latching of the door broke the spell of James’s bare flesh and Dean tore his eyes up to James’s face, only to fall into his darkened eyes.

It meant Dean didn’t see whatever James did next with the gloriously lucky fingers of his right hand, but he did see the way it made James’s eyes flicker to half mast, head tilting back with a soft groan.

“James,” he whispered, his throat dry with hoarseness.

“Dean,” James moaned in reply. “I’ve been thinking about you. Haven’t you been thinking about me?”

Whatever Hell it condemned him to, he had. Brave in the face of absolute damnation, he asked, “Can I—Can I touch you?”

James’s hand took unspeakable liberties with his own flesh, slick enough by then with his arousal that the sound of it made Dean salivate. “Undress first.”

How he managed to follow that order without braining himself on the bunk or a traveling trunk Dean didn’t know; all that mattered was that as soon as he was stripped as nude as James, James held out a hand to draw him down. The hand. The one that had just been on his dick moments before.

Dean fell where James guided him, straddling one of James’s powerful thighs. With a minute shift of his hips, James aligned their swollen dicks and just that simple addition of pressure nearly overwhelmed Dean. James rolled his hips up into Dean’s, rubbing them together, and Dean bit hard into his lower lip to muffle the sound it drew from him.

Then James did it again, and again, and Dean made the decision to shift his focus away from silencing himself. He reached down between their bodies to wrap his fingers around the both of them and let himself groan as he and James thrust into the grip of his hand together.

“James.” It was an oath, a proclamation, unexpected but not unwanted. “Oh, James.”

“No.” The pace and force of his thrusts erratic, nearly to the edge of climax, James’s voice was almost pleading. “Call me... Call—” He didn’t finish before he finished, his dick pulsing against Dean’s as he shook and moaned beneath him.

“Yes.” Dean was so close. As soon as the spurts stopped Dean opened his hand, only to close it, slick with ejaculate, around himself alone. “Jimmy,” he moaned as he worked himself to completion, and, “God,” and, “Damn,” and all the blasphemies that flowed so easily off his tongue because surely there was no harm in sinning when he was already in Heaven.

He settled to Jimmy’s side when he was done twitching through the pleasure, and Jimmy turned to give him a sleepy, sated kiss before they both drifted down.

_~ No. 1 ~_

Despite the bliss of his falling asleep, Dean awoke with a cold, heavy guilt settled firmly in his chest. Jimmy slept on beside him, innocent as a babe, and the shame at having sullied so wonderful a man of God crashed over him like a dark wave in a storm. Jimmy had enjoyed it by all discernable measures, had even invited it, but Dean ought to’ve had more self-control than to allow him to fall into temptation.

Dean was more than likely lost to the fires anyway, all the sinning he’d done in his life. He’d made his peace with it, though he’d still try to argue his case to St. Peter if he ever made it that far. But that didn’t mean he needed to corrupt better men than he.

And to have done it where Sam could have walked in at any moment—Dean was mortified at his own depravity.

He dressed and fled in the silence of Jimmy’s slumber.

Outside, the air had chilled from afternoon without reaching the cold of evening. No one paid Dean the least attention as he made his way out of the passenger area and over to one of the crew-restricted staircases to the lower decks, but he still felt like a neon sign must be making a marquee over his head, proclaiming his faults to the world. But no one else could see it, and that at least offered some comfort.

In fact, as he relaxed slightly in his guilt and really took in the status of the ship, he noticed that there wasn’t any shortage of gossiping groups—just none of them were looking at, or presumably talking about, him. Ketch’s arrest had been a spectacular bit of entertainment, but it had also been long enough ago that the chatter should have died out already, or at least been taken to more private venues.

He snagged the arm of a passing crewmate—not one he recognized yet, there were many new faces aboard the _Natural_ this season and he’d been too preoccupied to meet them all—and asked, “Did something else happen?”

“Cable from New York,” the man answered, his voice as hushed with excitement as all the others whispering around them. “From the FBI! Castiel Novak, Public Enemy Number One, is aboard our ship!”

Dean had heard of Novak; everyone in New York had heard of Novak, a gangster who’d been heavy into speakeasies and had a reputation for ruthlessness, though no one who’d crossed him ever lived to tell about the details. “They’re sure?”

“Yeah! One of their agents saw him boarding disguised as a priest, but wasn’t able to stop the ship or get the message through to us before now. But the captain's sure it’s Father Samuel. We’re all supposed to be searching the ship for him, didn’t you hear?”

“No, I. I must have missed that somehow. Why him and not Father James?”

Dean didn’t know how he formed the words, or even the thoughts behind them. He knew it wasn’t Sam, and so it had to be Jimmy. Jimmy, who wasn’t Jimmy at all, but the infamous Castiel Novak. He’d lied to them. He’d lied to Dean, specifically, and used him in the most intimate manner—and to think Dean had been feeling guilty!

“—purser checked the manifest,” the sailor was saying; Dean was only half heeding his words anymore. “Father James is on there, but the so-called Father Samuel isn’t. And he’s been taking advantage of poor Ms. Blake’s trust!”

“Right,” Dean agreed. Anger burned hot and crackling in the place of his unnecessary guilt, and he would scorch the man responsible. “I’ll join the search at once, of course.”

He slammed back into Jimmy’s—Castiel’s—cabin without knocking. The bang of it woke Castiel, who startled to his feet and with impressive reflex and reached beneath his pillow before registering who stood before him.

“Dean, what’s—”

“Save it, Castiel,” Dean spat at him. “You lied to us. You set Sam up to be your patsy if the news of your presence here got out.”

“Ah.”

Castiel’s face cooled from confusion to guarded thought, but then melted again into the openness Dean had seen earlier, when they’d moved together. It had been a lie, then; it was still a lie.

So when Castiel said, “Yes, but you have to know that things have changed since then,” Dean didn’t want to hear it.

“Well, it won’t work. I’m turning you in.”

“Dean, please let me explain,” Castiel asked his back as he left, but Dean couldn’t.

Feeling even more sick about the whole thing, Dean found Sam and told him the whole story. Well, most of the story. The parts he needed to hear. He warned him to lay low for a while, until he’d had a chance to reveal Castiel’s true identity to the captain.

Sarah offered her cabin as a continued hideout, of course. It had already proved successful; several sailors had come to check if Father Samuel, who they thought was Castiel Novak, was with her, but they all believed her sweet smile and honest eyes when she said no.

Then he found the captain.

“It’s Father James, sir. Not Samuel. James is Novak.”

The captain and purser exchanged looks. He understood their skepticism and hated Castiel all the more for it, because it had been his fallback plan all along. Any putz would have done, Sam just happened to be the one he’d come across first. The rest of it, with Sarah, was probably something personal to do with Ketch. They were the type of men to be in each other’s company, after all.

“He admitted it to me.”

“Fantastic news!” The captain clapped his hands together, more delighted than seemed appropriate. “Go fetch him at once, and tell him he has a standing invitation to my table. And anything at all he needs, he can let us know. Day or night!”

The purser and Dean were the ones to share confused frowns that time. “Sir?” asked the purser.

“We finally have a celebrity aboard, of course he’s to be offered the best treatment. Dinner tonight will be in his honor. Public Enemy Number One!”

_~ No. 1 ~_

The dinner party they threw for Castiel was surprisingly tolerable. He was pleased to be able to dress as himself again, in a proper suit and overcoat rather than the bland priest’s cassock. Of course he’d brought enough of his own wardrobe to complete the trip, as well as his favorite hat and two canes; being revealed had always been a possibility.

Sam had the seat next to him, at his request, because he’d come to enjoy Sam’s company over their few days of acquaintance. Not in the same was as his brother’s, of course, but he wasn’t at all certain he’d get that ever again.

He wished he’d had a chance to talk to Sam privately before the fuss. Dean clearly hadn’t told him all that had passed between them, and Cas wouldn’t betray that intimacy without Dean’s permission, but he wanted to at least explain his actions. He owed Sam an apology on his own, but he also hoped that Sam might be able to pass it along to Dean, who didn’t seem likely to want to speak to him ever again.

For instance, despite all non-essential crew being given the night off to join in the festivities, Dean was nowhere to be seen at the table full of uniformed men in one corner of the large dining area generally reserved for passengers. Nor was he anywhere along the walls of the room, trying to keep out of sight. He hadn’t come.

Cas forced himself to engage with the captain and other passengers, because his freedom hinged on keeping them pleased with him, but eventually the night wound down and he was able to pull Sam out to the hallway without anyone stopping them for conversation.

Sam’s mouth twitched nervously at being cornered, reminding Cas of what a difference his true identity made, and not just to Dean. He and Sam had been friends, and now Sam was scared of him. He didn’t like that. Strangers were scared of him, and that was fine. His enemies feared him, and that was good and as it should be. But his friends shouldn’t, and he was determined to fix it.

“Sam, I owe you an apology.”

“What? Oh. Oh! Thank you... Castiel. But to be honest, I don’t think you do.”

Cas’s disbelief must have shown on his face, because Sam hurried on, “You had your reasons for what you did, I’m sure. And regardless of your motivation, you gave me the chance to spend time with Sarah. It’s worth it, to me. Especially since I’m sure the authorities would have realized my innocence quickly enough. And I think you knew that. Even if your plan had worked, I only would have been confined for a few more days at the most.”

Nerves falling away as he spoke, Sam ended his pronouncement with a tentative smile.

“I hope I’m not overstepping again when I say I hope we can still be friends.”

“Of course. I’d like that. On the matter of which, my friends call me Cas.”

“All right, Cas.”

Sam’s smile broke out just as broad as it had before learning who Cas really was. Some small amount of Cas’s tension settled at that and he was glad for it, even if most of him remained uneasy about how things had gone with Dean. He hadn’t wanted to lie during a moment like that; he’d tried to tell Dean, though he could admit to himself now—with regret rather than lust clouding his thoughts—that he’d made the effort far too late to matter.

He had many amends to make.

“I,” he started, then looked away. Finding the words for this particular inquiry proved harder than he’d anticipated, even though he’d repeated it over and over in his mind over dinner. “I would also like it if Dean and I could still be friends, though I know he’s rightly upset with me.”

Worrying at his fake collar, Sam nodded. “Dean’s more protective of me than I am of myself, I think. He may find it harder to forgive, but I’ll try to talk him around. He was very fond of you, I know.”

Fortunately Cas had a lifetime of experience keeping a straight face, because otherwise he would have laughed at just how little Sam knew about the truth of that statement.

It also kept him from showing the world the pain in his heart the next day.

He hadn’t seen Dean since their fight. From Sam’s account, he was hiding in the crew quarters to avoid Cas. So running into him in the bright morning sun on the deck took Cas by surprise, and for a moment he forgot to stop his eyes from travelling the appealing length of Dean’s body in a swim suit. It wasn’t the most he’d seen of Dean’s skin, of course, but on the deck he’d only ever worn his full uniform.

Dean noticed his attention immediately and turned away, scowling.

Cas still had to try. He approached, said softly, “Dean, please...”

But Dean swung down off the railing he’d been perched on—away from Cas, not towards—and stalked away. Cas knew it wasn’t an invitation to follow.

_~ No. 1 ~_

Sam’s constant campaign to have Dean forgive Cas was hard enough without seeing the man himself, especially with how good he looked in real, and probably disastrously expensive, clothes. Not that he hadn’t looked good in the priest’s black. Or nude.

But down that trail of thoughts were too many regrets for a sunny morning when their journey was nearly ended. At least Dean could be rid of Cas then, though he feared he’d never be free from the ghost of his touch.

Ducking into a side corridor to be sure Cas wouldn’t follow, Dean nearly ran into Tessa. She looked hale, given the events of the previous afternoon, and he was glad to see it. But when he commented on it, her eyes widened and she laughed.

“I thought you of all people would know, seeing as it was a part of Cas’s plan.”

Stung and confused, Dean pulled back from her outstretched hand. “What plan?”

“To help Sam and Sarah.” Tessa’s bright-painted mouth pulled into a wrinkled frown. “Surely you realize that if it had just been about his feud with Ketch, the man would’ve disappeared overboard the first night.”

“You know him. Knew him, when he was Father James,” Dean clarified, just to be sure.

“Cas and I have been acquainted for years, professionally. He asked me a favor with Ketch, so I helped him out. It seemed needlessly complicated to me, to be honest, but he was insistent that circumstances force Ketch to still pay the Blakes what he owed on their arrangement, despite the girl’s freedom from him.”

The thought that Cas had orchestrated it all in Sam and Sarah’s favor ought to have endeared him at least a little to Dean, but it only served to enrage him further. He was done sulking; it was time for a real confrontation, not like the one he’d cut short when he first found out. It was time for Cas to stop interfering with their lives.

When he shoved rudely into Cas’s room for the second time in as many days, he hesitated when he found Sam already there. Both men looked at him with equally returned surprise, but then Sam’s brow furrowed and he continued with what had apparently been a point he was making.

“I need to make the return later, on a different ship. If I just turn around and come back, people will question my disguise more than they are already. It’s too risky when I need to keep up the ruse.”

“Not necessarily.”

Cas had that thoughtful, scheming look on his unforgivably handsome mug that Dean had to hate, because the only other option was loving it. And loving would lead him to want to spend time kissing it, and staring at it, and kissing it more, and those were all just entirely off the table with Cas. Smug, lying, criminal bastard. He could make his way through half the ladies on the ship before they made port if he wanted, they followed him around like a flock of goslings, and Dean was the idiot for thinking he’d been anything more than passing entertainment, a warm and willing body—

Dean shook his head to clear the unwelcome thoughts. He needed to focus on what Cas was saying about Sam.

“—only the crew and a bare handful of passengers will be returning. If you throw off your smock and declare your everlasting love for Ms. Blake, they’re more likely to think it a thrilling story than a scandal.”

“But Mr. Crowley, my boss, is going to be one of them! His business in England will be concluded in two days and he’ll be returning with the _Natural_. He nearly recognized me before, you remember. Without the disguise, he’d know me and fire me for sure.”

“Ah.”

“You see? It’s hopeless.”

“No, Sam. It’s very far from hopeless. The truth is, Crowley knows your identity and has done from the start. He let the matter drop because, seeing you in my company and being my own attorney of record, he assumes you work directly for me and I’ve sent you to keep tabs on him.”

That information knocked Sam speechless, so Dean took over for him.

“Swell. Thanks for your help, Mr. Novak, but we’ll take it from here.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The two of us, we’re through with your schemes. I don’t care if you’re Public Enemy Number One or Public Enemy Number Eighty-Two, I’m not scared of you and I’m not having you mess up our lives anymore.”

“Dean!” Sam protested. Of course, he found his words to defend the gangster instead of taking Dean’s side. “He’s done so much to help us, why would you say that!”

Dean opened his mouth to yell that Cas hadn’t helped him any, but Cas himself beat him to the punch.

“I understand.”

Dean had had a thing for Cas’s voice since the first time he heard Father James speak, but he didn’t sound anything like himself now. He sounded soft and sad, and somehow that cut through Dean’s anger more than ay argument would have.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, Dean. If you believe nothing else of me ever again, please believe that.”

It took a moment for Dean to catch his breath at Cas’s unexpected sincerity, and Cas had left by then. Pushed onward by a force he didn’t entirely recognize, Dean hurried after him and the two of them reached the ship’s outer railing together.

“Why?” Dean finally asked. “Why would you do all this for Sam if there’s nothing in it for you?”

“You’ve caught me out,” Cas admitted, staring out over the open water. “I’m fond of Sam, and glad to be helping him, but I’ve got as much selfish motive behind it as anyone. See, he’s got this brother I’m stupidly gone on, even though he won’t give me the time of day. We almost had a good thing going, but I might’ve ruined it. I thought that maybe if I do enough good for Sam, this brother of his might see his way to giving me another chance.”

He couldn’t see Cas’s face from that angle, which was just as well because it meant Cas couldn’t see his, either. If he could’ve, he would’ve been able to see just how gone Dean was, too, on him. It was bound to be all across him like a picture book, and even knowing that, Dean couldn’t get his emotions under control.

His voice wasn’t much better, but he still had to ask, “Does it really matter? I mean, is this brother ever gonna see you again after his ship takes you where you’re going?”

“If he doesn’t, it’ll be his choice. Seeing as how I’m taking his very same ship back to New York as soon as she’s ready to leave port.”

Dean nudged up to Cas’s space to look him in the eye; he had to. “Honest?”

“Honest.” Cas turned his body towards Dean, face open and warmed by orange glow of the setting sun. His hand brushed against Dean’s on the railing, subtle enough that passersby oughtn’t notice despite how the touch jolted up Dean’s spine. “I just needed to get out of New York until the heat died down. I was always coming back, Dean, but I never dared hope I’d get to come back to someone like you.”

“If I give you a chance.” He tried to stay aloof, but he was surely giving himself away with the grin that threatened to split his face wide open.

“If you give me a chance.”

Throwing caution and propriety to the salty ocean wind, Dean pulled Cas in by his lapels and laid one on him, right there on the deck where anyone could see. After all, no one on the S.S. _Natural_ would dare complain about the conduct of Public Enemy Number One.

**Author's Note:**

> The artwork that inspired this story was in turn inspired by [J. C. Leyendecker](https://g.co/kgs/cDfRv1), a prominent gay artist in the early 20th century. As soon as I heard that, my mind immediately went to [Cole Porter](https://g.co/kgs/7Y9eRq), a prominent gay composer and songwriter of the same era, and thus to Anything Goes. I mention this A. because I think it's just neat for you to know, and B. because both of these men are artists you should know about and admire.


End file.
